OPPOSITION/MEDIA CRY FOUL OVER CHANGE IN MEDIA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 YEREVAN 000770 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/CARC, DRL FOR A/S KRAMER E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/21/2018 TAGS: PGOV PHUM KMDR KPAO AM SUBJECT: OPPOSITION/MEDIA CRY FOUL OVER CHANGE IN MEDIA LAW, GOAM DENIES POLITICAL AGENDA YEREVAN 00000770 001.2 OF 004 Classified By: DCM Joseph Pennington, reasons 1.4 (b,d). -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) A midnight amendment to Armenia's Law on TV and Radio imposes a two-year moratorium on new TV broadcasting licenses, and has sparked criticism by domestic and international observers. Armenia's opposition and independent media experts say the moratorium constitutes another attempt to muzzle media freedomsand dispute the GOAM argument that the moratorium is justified in order to expedite Armenia's transition to digital broadcasting. The GOAM denies any political agenda behind the moratorium. The Council of Europe and OSCE quickly registered reservations , saying the moratorium flies in the face of recent demands by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for greater media pluralism in Armenia. END SUMMARY. -------------- BACKGROUND -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On September 10, Armenia's National Assembly swiftly passed a controversial amendment to Armenia's Law on TV and Radio that resulted in a two-year moratorium on the issuance of new TV broadcasting licenses (from September 27, 2008 - July 20, 2010). The amendment also provides that current TV broadcasters whose licenses expire before January 21, 2011, may apply to prolong their licenses to that date. The amendment was approved after three readings in one day, in an extraordinary session called the evening of September 10. (NOTE: While legally possible, three readings of legislation during a single daylong session is highly uncommon. END NOTE.) ¶3. (C) The furtive nature of this late-night legislating was confirmed by an incidental conversation we had with a ruling party MP. Emboffs contacted Republican Party Secretary Samvel Nikoyan the afternoon of September 10 to confirm a planned dinner meeting for that evening. Nikoyan blurted out to our political specialist "no I can't make it, we have a session tonight" and then caught himself, saying "please don't tell anyone we'll have a session tonight, it's a secret, I shouldn't have told you." This was a mere three hours before the unannounced session to enact the media legislation took place. ¶4. (SBU) The GOAM says the amendment is necessary to expedite Armenia's planned transition to mandatory digital broadcasting by 2012. Detractors believe the real motive is to fend off renewed Western pressure for opposition access to television, and in particular the reopening of A1Plus, a pro-oppositional independent TV channel that was forced off the air in April, 2002, for regularly criticizing the government. A1Plus, television frequency was sold to a pro-government media outlet. (NOTE: Since 2002, A1Plus has lost each of its 12 bids for a broadcasting license, with no explanations as to the reasons, according to its director. In June, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) fined the GOAM approximately USD 30,000 for the de facto ban and declared that the Armenian authorities' consistent rejection of A1Plus's applications ran counter to the European Convention on Human Rights. The ECHR,s punitive judgment of only USD 30,000 -- far short of the plaintiff,s request -- was seen locally as a mere wrist-slap for the GOAM, however, and the court,s narrative ruling was a narrower finding than A1Plus had sought. Related to the A1Plus case, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) later in June passed resolution 1620 that calls for fairness and transparency of broadcasting tenders. END NOTE.) -------------- - MORATORIUM ANOTHER ATTACK ON INDEPENDENT MEDIA -------------- - ¶5. (SBU) Armenia's opposition and independent media were quick to cry foul over the new amendment. Responding to Economic Minister Nerses Yeritsian's presentation of the amendment at the National Assembly, MPs of the Heritage party, the sole opposition party in parliament, said they did not believe the Minister's disavowal of political linkages in enacting the moratorium. Heritage MP Zaruhi Postanjian stated "this is an underhanded way of stripping A1Plus of its chances of going on the air and taking part in a license competition." She added "this is being done so that the market of existing TV companies won't be extended to include YEREVAN 00000770 002.2 OF 004 one more company." They also said the move is further proof of President Sargsian's intolerance of dissent. Heritage MPs are contemplating submitting new legislation that would provide for the holding of tenders for broadcasting licenses while the digital transition is in process. At a National Press Club discussion on September 19, Republic Party executive board member -- and a former detainee from the post-presidential election period -- Suren Surenyants mocked the amendment, saying it could be renamed the "Law on Depriving A1Plus The Right to Broadcast." Surenyants complained that Armenia has reached a situation in which new amendments to the Law on TV and Radio have nothing to do with the original law. -------------- -------------- A1PLUS: TIMING OF AMENDMENT "MAKES PERFECT SENSE" -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) A1Plus's Executive Director Movses Mesropian told Poloff September 26 that the timing and hidden motives of the new amendment "make perfect sense." In October the broadcasting license of one of Yerevan's 22 TV channels, ALM, was to expire and be subject to a new tender. Mesropian says the government moved to head off the tender by passing the moratorium with its extensions for current operators (such as ALM). Mesropian is convinced that the amendment was designed to keep independent media outlets like A1Plus and Noyan Tapan off the air, fearing their "objective" reporting would compromise the GOAM's credibility. Mesropian also said the authorities "have a captive, co-opted" TV market where "their people call the shots on content" and where "the lines of control are clear and well-developed." Implying that the authorities receive kickbacks in the awarding of broadcasting licenses, he added that the authorities want to sustain this system, as it is profitable both politically and financially. (NOTE: A1Plus and Noyan Tapan both lost their broadcasting licenses in April 2002, when they were the first TV stations to bid for licenses under the new, controversial TV and Radio Law drafted in November 2001. The law called for the issuance of 7-year licenses; from 1991 to 2002 all TV licenses were renewed on an annual basis. Both A1Plus and Noyan Tapan were subsequently replaced by TV outlets loyal to the authorities. END NOTE.) -------------- PRESS ASSOCIATIONS UNITED IN CRITICISM -------------- ¶7. (SBU) On September 9 five of Armenia's most prominent media associations released a statement condemning the passage of the moratorium, noting it had been enacted without any expert assessment or public debate. The Yerevan Press Club, the Gyumri-based Asparez Journalists Club, Internews Media Support NGO, the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, and the Femida public organization declared that "The Government of the Republic of Armenia has proved once again that its initiatives in the media domain are aimed not at ensuring the constitutional right to free receipt and dissemination of information, not at the improvement of the media domain, not at the implementation of the commitments to the Council of Europe and recommendations of PACE resolutions, but at retaining and strengthening the total control over broadcasters that is currently practiced." The associations blasted the authorities for making the draft law on the moratorium public only on September 8, the day it was introduced onto the National Assembly's agenda. The press associations also faulted the authors of the amendment for failing to provide the public more information about the digitalization process, what it entails for Armenia, and why/how they came up with a two-year time frame for the moratorium. ¶8. (C) The director of the Internews media support NGO, Nune Sargsian, and Internews' lawyer Movses Hakobian told Poloff September 23 that they were taken aback by the abrupt surfacing and rapid passage of such a technologically complicated issue by the National Assembly -- three readings in one day. Sargsian, who has worked for Internews since it opened its doors in Armenia in 1992, said the only conclusion one could draw was that the swift passage of the moratorium was a political decision with political motives. According to her, these motives include the authorities wanting a) to prevent the strengthening of linkages between the opposition and media, b) to avoid looking weak (ie, by issuing a new license to A1Plus),and c) using the digitalization process as a convenient tool to keep A1Plus off the air. Hakobian, who is considered one of Armenia's top media legal experts, said the licensing process could continue normally without a moratorium and pose no obstacle to digital conversion. YEREVAN 00000770 003.2 OF 004 -------------- MORATORIUM A CORRUPT PLOY TO PAD GOAM POCKETS -------------- ¶9. (C) The AmCit Chief of Party for IREX's Core Media Support Project in Armenia (a USAID grantee),could barely contain his contempt for the moratorium. He told Poloff September 22 that "it's just one more way to control the media" not only politically, but also financially. He argued that the amendment's provision of extensions to broadcasters whose seven-year licenses will expire soon is a "dead giveaway" that "friends" of the ruling regime will be given preferential treatment in the licensing process. He explained that the authorities will use the moratorium, the licensing process, and digitalization conversion to use economic pressure to force/keep poorer TV channels off the air, thus tilting the playing field in favor of those already broadcasting. "The whole process will be used to reward friends and kill everyone else," the IREX director said, emphasizing that "friends" meant those who hew the government line. He insisted that "there is no (technical) reason for the moratorium," and the authorities could issue new broadcasting licenses today that stipulate the requirement for digital conversion later. ¶10. (C) The IREX expert noted in a separate conversation with Polchief that many smaller, independent local/regional television stations around Armenia -- currently the most independent broadcasting voices in the Armenian context -- operate on shoe-string budgets, so an unfunded government mandate to convert to digital television would likely drive these outlets out of business. He estimated it will cost each station about USD 30,000 to convert -- pocket change for the big businessmen who control the national networks, but far more than the mom-and-pop regional TV stations could afford. Killing off these established competitors would then clear the way for local governors and mayors to replace them with stations run by affluent local allies -- providing opportunities for both graft and political control of the regional outlets. -------------- GOAM DENIES POLITICAL AGENDA -------------- ¶11. (C) In a September 24 meeting with Economic Minister Nerses Yeritsian where Poloff raised the moratorium as a cause of concern, Yeritsian denied any political linkages to the A1Plus case or freedom of media. He insisted that the process of conversion to digital broadcasting, which is already behind schedule in Armenia, unfortunately happens to coincide in timing with recent developments in the A1Plus case. Yeritsian fervently defended the government's decision as a technical one, arguing that "We need to put a (digital broadcasting) system in place before we can issue new TV licenses." Both he and Zhenya Azizian, his head of IT development whom Poloff met with separately, asserted that it would "create more headaches and problems" if new seven-year licenses were issued now, even with provisos that the operators must convert to digital in two years (as the moratorium's opponents propose). Both officials said if the GOAM were to proceed that way, it risked issuing licenses whose terms it could not enforce, and that lawsuits could be filed by derelict broadcasters and disgruntled citizens alike. Azizian downplayed the criticism being leveled at the new amendment, and maintained that the issue of extensions of current broadcasters involved only several TV outlets. Azizian declared that it was better to "legislate digitalization" in one fell swoop -- an allusion to a likely future law that would legally mandate all TV companies to broadcast digitally -- than to take a piece-meal approach by issuing new licenses that stipulated digitalization two years down the road. -------------- COE, OSCE WARN OF AMENDMENT'S RAMIFICATIONS -------------- ¶12. (C) The Council of Europe (COE) quickly registered its concerns with the amendment. At a September 11 meeting with ex-National Assembly Speaker Tigran Torossian, Claudia Luciani. the COE's director general for political affairs and cooperation, criticized the manner in which the law was changed. "The bill was adopted in haste, without any European expertise," Luciani said, adding "it is not a step towards implementing the resolutions of PACE but a step backwards, which means that both the government and the National Assembly have not taken the proposals in PACE YEREVAN 00000770 004.2 OF 004 resolutions seriously." On September 19, the OSCE's Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos Haraszti addressed a letter to President Sargsian in which he expressed OSCE concerns about the moratorium. Haraszti wrote that "by cutting off any potential broadcasters from entering the market until the digital switchover becomes effective, the limited pluralism in the Armenian broadcasting sector will be further diminished." He also warned President Sargsian that "the moratorium may make Armenia unable to comply with the recent decisions of the ECHR in the case of A1Plus which found that denial of the TV station's licenses violated the European Convention on Human Rights. OSCE's Head of Delegation in Armenia Ambassador Sergey Kapinos confidentially told Poloff September 25 that "regardless of the technical justification the government gave for the moratorium, the hasty manner in which they passed the law can only raise suspicions" about its intent. -------------- REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE ON DIGITALIZATION -------------- ¶13. (C) Various interlocutors whom Poloff spoke with raised the issue of US assistance to Armenia during the digital conversion process. Internews' director Nune Sargsian said the complexity of the process -- including the elaboration of a concept paper for the entire process, accompanying legislation, drafting of regulatory guidelines, technical assistance to broadcasters and the government -- is immense, and the GOAM will need extensive support from the international community to pull it off. Minister Yeritsian mentioned that the GOAM has received some support from the OSCE so far in the form of expert studies. IREX agreed with Internews that US assistance and experience would be of great benefit to Armenia's digital conversion process. (NOTE: Though plans remain at early stages, increased technical and financial support to regional media outlets is an option we are actively exploring. END NOTE.) -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶14. (C) The lack of media pluralism in Armenia, especially acute in TV media, has been a long-running blot on Armenia's on-again, off-again democratization record. The one-sided favorable coverage of then-Prime Minister Sargsian by Yerevan's 22 TV channels in the run-up to Armenia's 2008 presidential election is but one example. Persistent GOAM pressure to restrict Radio Liberty's programming content is another. Invasive tax inspections of opposition print media and efforts in 2007-08 to drive Gyumri's GALA TV off the air are yet more. In such a repressive media environment, the new amendment imposing a moratorium on new TV licenses -- and the hasty manner in which it was passed -- raise fresh doubts about GOAM pledges to improve on democratization. END COMMENT. YOVANOVITCH